Craig Walters

Craig Walters Email and Phone Number

Enterprise Architecture @ Nestlé Purina North America
Craig Walters's Location
St Louis, Missouri, United States, United States
About Craig Walters

Accomplished senior technical leader who builds strong teams that deliver on organizational objectives. Recognized for creative and independent thinking; specializing in the alignment of the strategic direction of technology and business initiatives.Using my broad technical and strategic background I have introduced technologies and translated complex business requirements into robust cost-effective solutions. I have expertise in planning, selecting, acquiring, implementing and supporting corporate information systems while optimizing cost/benefit performance. Current with the latest technology trends.

Craig Walters's Current Company Details
Nestlé Purina North America

Nestlé Purina North America

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Enterprise Architecture
Craig Walters Work Experience Details
  • Nestlé Purina North America
    Director Of Solution Architecture
    Nestlé Purina North America Sep 2024 - Present
    St. Louis, Mo, Us
    Lead a team to develop architecture frameworks that align the organization’s IT infrastructure with its business processes and data to improve the efficiency and productivity of business operations. My team and I work to map the relationships between information systems components such as: end users, business processes, applications, data, IT platform hardware/software, and networks by identifying key interactions and dependencies across separate systems and platforms and evaluate the total cost of ownership and return on investment of various architecture alternatives.As a leader, I establish and implement strategies that have mid- to long-term impact on business results in alignment with Purina and broader Nestle objectives. Lastly, I develop roadmap plans for optimizing the organization, function, or sub-function and the talent required to execute strategies within my area.
  • Federal Reserve Bank Of St. Louis
    Principle Portfolio Architect
    Federal Reserve Bank Of St. Louis Oct 2020 - Sep 2024
    St Louis, Missouri, Us
  • Mastercard
    Senior Director Of Cloud Architecture
    Mastercard Aug 2018 - Jun 2020
    Purchase, Ny, Us
    Accountable for the technical delivery of Mastercard’s new Track platform. Track is Mastercard’s entry product into the Business-to-Business financial space that coordinates payments between buyers and suppliers world-wide. This product was developed in close cooperation with Microsoft. I was responsible for Cloud high availability and security as well as overseeing the continuous integration and agile processes. The system included APIs and Microservices architectures 100% in the cloud.• Established global strategic objectives (short and long-term) and drove implementation of tactical implementation.• Managed systems, security, vendors, and infrastructure in an Agile/DevOps organization• Developed long-term strategic direction for technology, staffing, and delivery
  • Reinsurance Group Of America, Incorporated
    Technical Consultant
    Reinsurance Group Of America, Incorporated 2020 - 2020
    Chesterfield, Missouri, Us
    Evaluated and recommended improvements in the automated acceptance testing process for their AURA product.
  • Insight
    Technical Consultant
    Insight 2020 - 2020
    Chandler, Arizona, Us
    Worked with a major area manufacturing business to mentor and train on Agile (SCRUM) Product Ownership
  • Contegix
    Director Of Development
    Contegix Oct 2017 - Jul 2018
    Sterling, Virginia, Us
    Led team of in-house and outside developers to create a Deployment Pipeline application supporting a DevOps process to automate the deployment of Drupal, Java, and Dot-Net applications in both public and private cloud environments. By significant cross-team coordination, I successfully won budget, engaged an outside development team, and implemented this complex project successfully.• Provided transitional leadership to a team that previously lacked direction• Provided a product to Contegix that allowed them to fill a hole in their product portfolio. Combining this with their top-tier support allowed them to win business they previously could not.
  • Enterprise Holdings
    Enterprise Data Architect For Insurance Services
    Enterprise Holdings May 2015 - Sep 2017
    St. Louis, Missouri, Us
    Helped start a new business unit specializing in the analytics of vehicle estimate, repair, and rental data to enable insurance companies to do business with the best-performing repair shops, control costs, and improve customer satisfaction. Developed, socialized with executive management, and ran the technical strategy for this new business unit. Worked closely with a geographically separated team after a merger (two locations in St. Louis; Madison, WI; Anaheim, CA) to collect and analyze real-time data using leading-edge geospatial, artificial intelligence (AI), and statistical algorithms. The team consisted of business analysts, data scientists, database developers, Java & Javascript (node.js) developers.Successfully transformed business-critical initiatives and processes:• Implemented a hybrid cloud that integrated local data center, Amazon, Azure, and Rackspace services to accommodate all business and security requirements in a DevOps process.• Implemented a better solution to database access through the use of data virtualization using the Cisco Information Server (CIS).• Architected several complex cloud-based solutions (Amazon Web Services, RackSpace, & Azure) forsupporting the needs of the Insurance Services business unit.• Managed through acquisition and integration of 2 small companies in different parts of the U.S. with the St. Louis, MO based Insurance Services business.
  • Evolve24
    Technical Product Director And Cio
    Evolve24 Feb 2013 - May 2015
    St. Louis, Mo, Us
    Provide technology vision, business alignment, and leadership collaborating with others on the executive management team to achieve company goals. This includes the definition, development, and delivery of a portfolio of products used for complex analysis of diverse information used by various government agencies to assist in the formation of risk assessment, and U.S. foreign policy; and commercial organizations to formulate marketing strategies and issue resolution. Team consisted of scientific researchers, data scientists, database administrators, design & usability specialists, and system administrators with direct reports managing each of these groups. Successfully transformed business-critical initiatives and processes:• Led team through the development of a hybrid cloud implementation that allowed normal processing loads to be handled in the company data center and short-term peak loads to be processed into the Amazon cloud at minimal marginal cost.• Drove Lean Process Improvement across the organization by forming cross-functional, task-organized teams accountable for specific feature delivery. Successfully implemented a lean “DevOps” process that reduced complexity of the build and release process and reduced the time to execute an application deployment from six hours to ten minutes. Drove out over $1.2 Million of annual waste.• Led the development of enterprise metrics strategy to include identification of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and success measures. Led Organization Change Management using these metrics to demonstrate improvement.• Selected and managed vendors to meet the company’s objectives while achieving competitive pricing, appropriate service levels, and excellent performance. Renegotiated with vendors to reduce costs by an average of 14% over previous years.
  • Monsanto
    Enterprise Information & Analytics Architecture Lead For Research
    Monsanto Sep 2008 - Oct 2012
    St. Louis, Missouri, Us
    Led a team of senior data architects and data developers to implement multi-million dollar information architecture for the processing and analysis of a "Big Data" data set. This team specified the data architecture and associated development processes for supporting genetic research in plants. Turned an ad-hoc and ineffective data architecture into one that delivers measurable value to Monsanto’s bottom line. Working through influence, created and implemented the adoption of Monsanto’s “Big Data” strategy combining Oracle Exadata, Informatica PowerCenter, Hadoop, and Information Services into a combined architecture that reduced execution time of critical analytical operations by 50%-100000%. Developed a methodology and role definitions to align the design and development of application databases with the agile practices of software development.Developed a 5-year long-range plan for data architecture and analytics that required the coordination of resources from within the resarch organization, with several other Monsanto teams, and other companies such as Oracle, Informatica, IBM, and BMC. Gathered consensus on the adoption of this multi-million dollar plan across the organization and lead the team through the rollout and hand-off to the implementation teams.Consulted on the development and maintenance of a global IT infrastructure architecture in support of Monsanto’s business needs. Developed and maintained strong relationships with large IT vendors and partners.Enforced compliance with technology and architecture standards through complete metrics-driven model.Managed the vitality of technical talent by providing guidance, coaching and feedback to direct reports and other leaders within their respective area of technical expertise.
  • Monsanto
    Enterprise Software Architecture And Tools Team Lead
    Monsanto Sep 2006 - Aug 2008
    St. Louis, Missouri, Us
    Lead a team of senior architects and managed the budget for the team. This team specified the application architecture and development process best-practices for research, business (customer-facing), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and manufacturing development teams. The team, working closely with other specialists in the organization to define the architectural vision for manufacturing, mobile computing, information lifecycle management, deployment, security, application architecture, data architecture, and service-oriented architecture. Designed and implemented single a sign-on security architecture using Kerberos that integrated custom applications, SAP, B2B Web Services, 3rd-party applications, and Microsoft SharePoint. Co-designed DMZ architecture with information security office (ISO) leads to provide secure access to internal data and services.
  • Monsanto
    Master Software Architect
    Monsanto Jan 2001 - Aug 2006
    St. Louis, Missouri, Us
    Recognized across IT with a “Most Valuable Player” award. This honor is given to the people deemed most valuable to the organization by their co-workers.Championed and successfully lead the implementation of the Agile/Lean development process, Test-First Development, and service-oriented architecture (SOA) as well as general application architecture for for scientific research application. Mentored teams during entire product development lifecycle (PDLC). Set up and taught a 10-month technical leadership training program that won corporate-wide recognition for its impact. Recognized by the CIO with an “Above and Beyond” award for this program. Co-developed an on-boarding training program (called the “Developer Boot Camp”) that gave new developers all the basic information needed to operate in the organization, which improved their “time to productivity” by over three weeks. Was recognized by the CIO with an “IT Value Award” for this program. Taught classes in object-oriented principles, design patterns, and requirements management.Defined and supervised the implementation of a working code and design metrics analysis program that improved 1st-time quality of applications by 45%.Wrote Java frameworks for servlets, security, and persistence that were adopted as company-wide standards resulting in a 35% improvement in time to market. Wrote a specialized Java API to make it easy for development teams to utilize the Monsanto compute grid (Sun Grid Engine) for massively parallel computing jobs. This API allowed key applications to process data 1000 times faster than previous approaches. Lead a department-wide effort to tune Java applications. This tuning consisted of using jProfiler to analyze the code for memory and CPU hotspots and tuning the JVM memory sections and garbage collection parameters. The results of this program was all tuned applications were able to run at least twice as fast, had twice the throughput, or both.
  • Reed Hannebaum Engineering Services
    Principal Robotics And Machine Vision Engineer
    Reed Hannebaum Engineering Services Mar 1998 - Sep 2001
    Designed and developed robotic vision and machine control systems for industrial applications. Projects include material inspection and various precise measuring applications. Responsible for development of robotic motion control and artificial intelligence software. Also conducted training classes in Object-Oriented development, C++ programming, and project management. Developed algorithms and innovative approaches which lead to the award of three patents.
  • Intertech Management Group
    Director Of Software Development (Consultant)
    Intertech Management Group Feb 1997 - Feb 1998
    Director of Software Development for a team of 20 engineers with budgetary responsibility. Developed policies and procedures for Capability Maturity Model (CMM) levels 2 & 3. Organized change control procedures. Organized testing team. Developed technical requirements for a telephone billing service software product. Mapped out the re-design of the original product using the latest object-oriented design techniques.
  • Various
    Consultant
    Various Jun 1995 - Jan 1997
    Omnus International, Inc.:Project Architect for team of 8 C++ developers. Developed requirements and designed software system for poultry farm management system. Analyzed business requirements to match with technically feasible solutions. System scope includes real-time farm data collection and processes control, veterinary data collection, least-cost feed formulation, feed and bird delivery planning. Used Rational Rose design tool for object-oriented design. Objects stored on Microsoft SQL Server database. Designed unique and effective model for bridging the object-oriented/Relational data base gap that reduced development time by 30%.MasterCard International:Designed and developed the MasterCard Point Of Sale Information Processor (MIP). Converted system previously implemented on IBM Series/1 hardware to NCR/ATT UNIX SVR4 platform. Analyzed requirements and developed impact statements and complete test plan. Also developed code for authorization of credit card transactions processing.ANHEUSER-BUSH Corporate Engineering:Designed and directed development of a real-time shop floor order control system for the beer packaging line. Packaging orders are input from corporate planners and are then distributed to several packaging lines. Orders are grouped as required for individual machine operations. Machine Operators select the sequence in which these orders are processed. real-time production data and order sequencing are collected and transmitted to client applications which can be geographically separated from the plant. All users are automatically notified of changes made by others on the system.
  • Bridge Information Systems
    Research Software Engineer
    Bridge Information Systems Nov 1992 - May 1995
    Designed and developed a complete distributed text database system for a financial research tool. Designed & supervised development of a system which allows data vendors to send large amounts of data to this research tool quickly. Designed the client software which provides customer access to this data via a wide area network. Investigated and used AI technology for automatic story classification and natural language search. Forecast hardware and software requirements for system growth. Evaluated and specified products for same. Work required a broad knowledge of precedents in the communications, data translation, and machine learning areas and a good knowledge of the principles and practices of graphics, networking, and system administration. Worked with only general supervisory instructions.
  • Various
    Software Consultant
    Various Jul 1992 - Nov 1992
    Consultant for AeroTech Services Group:Developed a distributed database application combining dissimilar systems (UNIX, VMS & MS-Windows) into a single interface that allowed the users to access data and run programs on any system from their local computer as if the data and program existed locally. Full access & ownership rights are preserved. Utilized automatic balancing for the placement of files and execution of programs.Consultant for AeroTech Services Group:Designed and developed the Integrated Design Data Tool (IDDT) system. This product works in concert with Unigraphics II CAD/CAM software to associate intended construction material with design geometry based on designer selection of materials from several vendor catalogs. Automated the “Advanced Material Request”, material compliance and electronic ordering processes. Integrated product with the Electronic Bids process.Consultant for Venture Department Stores Corporate Headquarters:Participated in the development of a product for Venture's national distribution center. UNIX & "C" programming of software to track stock from initial order to final sale.Consultant at Pipkins, Inc.:Participated in the development of the user interface for a scheduling program capable of scheduling up to 3000 telephone operators, taking into account union rules, work preferences, and many other features.
  • Surface Systems
    Research & Development Director
    Surface Systems Oct 1990 - Jun 1992
    Supervisory responsibility for research and development work, problem resolution, design, and establishment of specifications and standards for remote weather data collection products, under general direction with an annual budget of $500,000. Managed and coordinated activities between the R&D department and sales, service, and production departments. Followed up on manufacturing and assisted other managers in resolving difficult design problems. Set up coding standards and procedures which reduced code error rate by 85%, and allowed future deadlines and release dates to be 100% met. Developed a methodology for software release that dramatically improved communications between all departments.
  • Mcdonnell Douglas
    Engineer
    Mcdonnell Douglas Mar 1987 - Sep 1990
    Arlington, Va, Us
    Software manager for a $14 Million F14A flight simulator project. Supervised ten other engineers through development, integration, and sell-off. Responsible for scheduling, planning and algorithm development. Also had programming responsibilities for programming communication systems, ECM, Data Link, Demo/Replay, and data base management.Developed and coded software for CAD/CAM data translators. Worked on CADDS4X, UGII, IGES, PDES, and CATIA data bases. Lead IGES product team (supervising six other engineers). Member of a design team which developed a "Next Generation" CAD/CAM data base translator program which reduced time to market from two years to four months.
  • Various
    Consultant
    Various Dec 1985 - Feb 1987
    Produced assembly language programs for the M68000 microprocessor. Designed and programmed process controllers with M68000 as a master processor, with 8088 as slave processors. Produced programs for flight simulation, plant automation, embedded systems.Developed SQL data base applications for several educational and manufacturing institutions. Developed and maintained supporting software for existing aircraft structural design software.Developed software for a major professional auto racing team to optimize suspension systems based on track conditions and driver preferences.

Craig Walters Skills

Software Development Soa Databases Integration Agile Methodologies Java Unix Web Services Enterprise Architecture Data Warehousing Oracle Business Intelligence Tomcat C++ Sharepoint Sql Big Data Data Analysis Distributed Systems Architecture Management Application Architecture Object Oriented Design Sdlc Xml Spring Linux C# C Hadoop Enterprise Software Agile Software Project Management Virtualization Cloud Computing Business Management Oop Windows J2ee .net Nosql Rest Team Leadership Application Development Data Quality Program Management Java Enterprise Edition Uml Etl Design Patterns

Craig Walters Education Details

  • Missouri University Of Science And Technology
    Missouri University Of Science And Technology
    Computer Science
  • Missouri Western State University
    Missouri Western State University
    Computer Science
  • Missouri University Of Science And Technology
    Missouri University Of Science And Technology
    Aerospace Engineering
  • Missouri Western State University
    Missouri Western State University
    Computer Science
  • Missouri University Of Science And Technology
    Missouri University Of Science And Technology
    Computer Science
  • Missouri University Of Science And Technology
    Missouri University Of Science And Technology
    Aeronautical And Astronautical Engineering

Frequently Asked Questions about Craig Walters

What company does Craig Walters work for?

Craig Walters works for Nestlé Purina North America

What is Craig Walters's role at the current company?

Craig Walters's current role is Enterprise Architecture.

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What is Craig Walters's direct phone number?

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What schools did Craig Walters attend?

Craig Walters attended Missouri University Of Science And Technology, Missouri Western State University, Missouri University Of Science And Technology, Missouri Western State University, Missouri University Of Science And Technology, Missouri University Of Science And Technology.

What are some of Craig Walters's interests?

Craig Walters has interest in Civil Rights And Social Action, Science And Technology.

What skills is Craig Walters known for?

Craig Walters has skills like Software Development, Soa, Databases, Integration, Agile Methodologies, Java, Unix, Web Services, Enterprise Architecture, Data Warehousing, Oracle, Business Intelligence.

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